The invention is based on an apparatus for processing a sequence of control commands for a unit to be controlled of the generic type of the independent claim 1. Such an apparatus has recently become known by virtue of the fact that the DVD (Digital Versatile Disc) playback devices that are the latest additions to the market have a so-called sub-picture decoding unit (sub-picture decoder). These sub-picture decoding units are designed according to the specification described in the DVD Standard (Version 1.0). A specific command set for control commands for driving the display unit is described and agreed in the DVD Standard (Version 1.0). However, only very few control commands for the display control are provided therein. It may therefore be expected that in future DVD standardization proposals with version numbers greater than 1.0, additional control commands which are not yet contained in the current DVD standard (version 1.0) will be defined in order to make the display control even more convenient. If a sequence of control commands in which newly defined control commands also occur is therefore stored on storage media, for example the DVD disk, then the problem that currently exists is that such control command sequences cannot be processed in a compatible manner by a DVD playback device which has been developed according to today's standardization proposal.